CALVIN RICE | COMPOSER
Calvin Rice (b. 2004) is a composer, pianist, and clarinetist from Seattle, currently studying composition at the University of Oregon with Robert Kyr and David Crumb. His compositions range from the most meditative to the most ecstatic, incorporating a wide spectrum of colors and textures. In addition to acoustic works, he composes electronic music for short films and other media using software such as Logic Pro and Max/MSP. Rice has studied at festivals, workshops, and other venues with prominent composers such as Richard Danielpour, Donnacha Dennehey, Michael Djupstrom, Reiko Füting, Pierre Jalbert, Amy Beth Kirsten, Douglas Knehans, Zhou Long, Angelica Negron, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, George Tsontakis, Melinda Wagner, George Tsontakis, Chen Yi, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon.
As a pianist and clarinetist who recently returned from Costa Rica with the celebrated UO Wind Ensemble, Rice frequently performs alongside colleagues and friends as part of the Oregon Composers Forum, and is especially fascinated with live improvisation. This summer, Rice premiered new works and participated in workshops and masterclasses in Europe, as part of the Vienna Contemporary Composers Festival and the soundSCAPE Composition and Performance Exchange. Previously, he has attended the Atlantic Music Festival and the Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium.
​
Rice has enjoyed collaborations with numerous professional artists and friends, including the Mivos Quartet, soprano Estelí Gomez, Chatter PDX, the Delgani String Quartet, clarinetist Wonkak Kim, and nonesuch.reedquintet. His piece Mutation was recently featured on nonesuch.reedquintet’s Southeast Asia tour, where it received performances in Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand.
He was a finalist for the 2022 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. He received second place in the wind ensemble category of the American Prize and third place in the American Prize's Marian Anderson Social Justice Award. He won the 2025 Sound Ensemble Composition Competition and is currently a finalist for the Ithaca College Choral International Composition Competition. Rice won the Opus 7 Robert Scandrett Memorial Award in 2024 for his piece Spellbound, commercially recorded for the album Washington Sings.
